Birds of Southern Kamerun. 63 



place. The stomach-contents consist mainly of insects, 

 including spiders. These and other Snnbirds do often hover 

 on the wing before Howers, like Hnmming-bircls, bnt only 

 for a few moments at a time. 



The beautiful velvety dark brown of the males of tliis 

 species becomes much faded, or bleached, when the plumage 

 is worn, so that in the moult the new feathers are much 

 darker than the old. 



1866. Anabathmus reichenbachi. [Zesol.] 



Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 340. 



Of this little Sunbird only two adults and one young 

 specimen were obtained, all at the Ja. The last adult and 

 the young one were cauglit, along wnth a Clnnijris chloro- 

 pygiiis, by a boy, at evening, at tlieir roosting-place among 

 tall weeds near a village. 



Both the adult specimens w^ere females and are wrongly 

 marked " $ " in Dr. Sharpe's paper. This fact is remarkable, 

 because they have the bright colours usually possessed by 

 the males alone among the Sunbirds, including the yellow 

 pectoral tufts. I was surprised at the time of skinning to see 

 that they were females, and so looked carefully to be sure 

 that there was no mistake. In both cases the ovaries 

 shewed small ova. When I examined the second specimen 

 and found it a female, I put the body in spirit and sent it 

 to the ]Museum ; but it seems not to have arrived there. 

 Lately I have found in Reichenow^'s ' VJigel Afrikas ' (iii. 

 p. 468) the statement, under this species, that " the female 

 is like the male in colour." 



1874. CiNXYRis suPERBUs (Sliaw). [Odiraa-ZesoL] 



Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 338. 



This, the most richly dressed and largest of our Sunbirds, 

 makes its appearance, rather infrequently, about flowering 

 shrubs and trees, and most often about the great opening 

 buds of staminate flowers at the end of a young bunch of 

 plantains or bananas. It frequently perches for a moment 

 on the plantain-bunch, but wlien thrusting its bill among 

 the flowers it often hovers on the wing as well. Though this 



